Ebooks
Ebooks failed. Critics of ebook cite various reasons, including prices and the love for paper books, to explain why ebooks failed. While there is truth in these critiques, one can not but ask why ebooks failed to take off while research papers in electronic form became dominant. Although there is more to research publications that the digital revolution should promise, the raw digitization of papers already shows great advantage against printed papers. Digital copies are vastly easier to distribute, organize, and index. Web sites like arXiv are extremely popular for people to find papers. One reason is that ebooks are often technologically backward compared with the layout of printed content. Although Apple managed to revolutionize the ergonomics of reading through the iPad, the aesthetics didn't extend to Apple Books. It's worth noting that many beautiful interactive ebooks are published as apps, rather than ebooks, which demonstrates the versatility of the tablet platform